Download to Excel or csv solutions

We need to get download functionality where channel entries can be downloaded to an Excel spreadsheet (preferably) or a csv at a push.

Been looking at Export_It and using it which is ok but ran into two problems which apparently are not solvable - at least have never got any results investigating them - so need maybe another solution.

The problems in question were/are:

1) Strange characters in the spreadsheet if the file contains accented foreign characters. I believe integrating PhpExcel with Export_It should fix this but I never got this working and no-one on PhpExcel forums or elsewhere seems to know anything about the error.

2) We need to be able to take data from TWO categories in the download: i.e. category=”1&2” in the parameters. Have not been able to find out if Export_It supports this but it seems not as it doesn’t work.

So we need another solution. Has anyone successfully implemented PhpExcel as a stand-alone in EE? Are there any other modules or solutions you might recommend?